


The Letter

by Nununununu



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Domestic, Don't copy to another site, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Slash, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:46:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21571021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/pseuds/Nununununu
Summary: Steve scooped the letter up off the doormat. It looked innocuous, a white envelope written on in black pen, but a little crinkle appeared beneath Steve’s brows as he flipped it over to glance at the address on the back.His frown smoothed out into an expression of comprehension, “This is for Bucky.”“Oh?” Sam managed not to make this too much of a question, although Bucky didn’t get post – he’d technically lived with them for the past six months, drifting in and out without much explanation, existing alongside them somewhat like a ghost, and during all the time Sam had known him, this had been a constant:Bucky did not get post.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 55
Collections: Hurt Comfort Flash Exchange





	The Letter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meatball42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/gifts).



> TW for non-graphic discussion of minor original character death from natural causes. A brief non-detailed reference to period typical homophobia.
> 
> Includes some minor AU backstory for both characters. Contains brief Steve/Bucky (believed to be unrequited) and a hint of Sam/Steve; could potentially be read as implied pre-OT3. No IW/Endgame references. 
> 
> For Meatball42. This combines several elements of your prompt ideas. Hope you like it!

Sam was in the kitchen in the brick townhouse the three of them nominally shared when it happened: the letterbox swung open to herald the arrival of post. So far so normal – poking at the omelette with a spatula, he called over his shoulder,

“Hey Steve, post. Reckon it’s that guy getting back to you about that thing?” He flipped the omelette onto a plate, tossed a handful of seeds and sliced chilli over the veggies he’d steamed earlier, and cracked open a can of drink, while Steve appeared towel-clad from the direction of the bathroom, rubbing another towel through his wet hair, padding over in the direction of the door to investigate.

This was a sight Sam had grown mostly immune to after months of living together. He just took a swallow of his drink, deposited the cooking dishes in the sink for later cleaning, and watched without much of anything other than idle curiosity as Steve scooped the letter up off the doormat. It looked innocuous, a white envelope written on in black pen, but a little crinkle appeared beneath Steve’s brows as he flipped it over to glance at the address on the back.

His frown smoothed out into an expression of comprehension, “This is for Bucky.”

“Oh?” Sam managed not to make this too much of a question, although Bucky didn’t get post – he’d technically lived with them for the past six months, drifting in and out without much explanation, existing alongside them somewhat like a ghost, and during all the time Sam had known him, this had been a constant: _Bucky did not get post_.

“Yeah, I’ll just –” Steve glanced about as if considering where to put it.

A certain long arm reached in from the narrow gap created by the half open window and tapped two metal fingers soundlessly against the kitchen counter in the corner of Sam’s vision, while Steve’s back was turned.

“Hm,” Sam passed the hand a closed can of drink, which it gratefully retreated with back out to the fire escape, and buried a tiny smile in his own can when Steve glanced over his way. He nodded at the letter, “I’ll make sure Bucky realises about that if he comes home while you’re out, okay?” The space outside the kitchen window was occupied by a listening silence. “I know you’ve got that talk to do.”

“I do, I –” That furrow indenting his brow again, Steve glanced at the clock, “Yeah, please.”

“Sandwiches for you there to counter the lack of super soldier lunch,” Gathering his plate up in readiness to transfer to the living room table, Sam dipped his chin to indicate the brown paper bag set by the dish on the counter where they tended to dump their keys.

While it was entirely possible he was imagining it, he was certain he heard the tiniest snort of amusement from the open window. Sam kept his expression steady. Yeah yeah, he knew he sounded like a mother hen.

“Thank you,” Steve was saying, earnestly appreciative, collecting up the bag and leaving the letter for Bucky in a prominent position on top of the dish, “I’ll swing by that new bakery on the way back; you want doughnuts, right?”

“Powdered, not glazed,” Sam confirmed, and just about managed not to glance at the window, his ears peeled in case the fire escape or anything else out there had an opinion. “Maybe a couple of chocolate too and, I don’t know, one of that new berry kind,” he added, when the silence outside became conflicted.

“Careful you get to those ones in time; you never know if Buck might do more than just try to eat them with his eyes,” Steve grinned crookedly, as if he too was well aware of the ghost outside the window.

“I’m sure I’ll survive,” Given that this was the very result he was hoping for, Sam just grinned back at him.

He transferred to the table with his only slightly cold lunch while Steve disappeared back into the bathroom to dress, and had vanquished most of his meal by the time the other man left in a bit of an uncharacteristic hurry for the talk, Steve shooting a look back at the as yet unclaimed letter as he went.

Sam turned the radio onto something low and quiet to fill the room with some background sound while he wandered back into the kitchen to get on with the dishes, shimmying a little from foot to foot whenever it played something a little livelier, something that he liked. He got out a mixing bowl and a couple of things from the fridge, when he judged enough time had passed and he looked over at the dish on the counter and, sure enough, the letter had gone.

The window to the fire escape was still open, wider now; the silence out there seeming somehow even deeper, despite the muted chatter from the radio host, turned down enough the words were mostly meaningless.

Parking his hip on the edge of the counter, his arms folded while the water boiled for coffee, Sam listened to that silence beyond the background sound. It bore the quality of a vacuum, somehow – he knew the letter hadn’t been a good one.

“Bad news, huh,” he observed, quiet enough it pass for unnoticed, like the radio. He almost expected a metal arm to winch into view to slide the window down silently, as effective as a pointed retort – it had happened before, on a day not unlike this – but nothing happened.

Somehow this made that impression of a vacuum worse. 

“Nah, it’s okay man, I get it,” Sam poured the water into his coffee mug, cracked open an egg into the mixing bowl, and fetched flour to add to the ingredients he’d already got out. Whipping up the mixture in no time, he found he was humming under his breath to himself, some tune in a then unfamiliar language his gramma had used to sing back when he was a kid.

“Your pronunciation is terrible,” was Bucky’s comment as he climbed in through the window, one long leg first and then the rest of him, his timing impeccable as Sam poured the first pancake into the sizzling pan.

“Hm?” Sam had to think about it to realise he’d started singing some of the lyrics in amongst his humming. He had a hand full of blueberries, about to drop them on top of the pancake – he completed this action, opening his fingers, and caught Bucky’s expression – pale faced, more like a ghost than ever – then focused his gaze back on his task. “You come in here to criticise my singing, man, or to get fed?”

Bucky settled himself at the living room table like this was something he’d done before, perhaps even regularly, “Both.”

“Fair enough,” Sam couldn’t quite quash his smile, “You know Steve’s gone out, right?” He felt it only right to say as much, even though he knew full well the other man was aware of it.

There was a crinkle of paper as Bucky produced the letter from – somewhere; probably the same place he seemed to hide any of about a dozen weapons – and smoothed the envelope out after placing it in front of him on the table.

“Yeah, I know that,” His tone was equable; it hid countless things.

“Reckon he’ll be back in a couple of hours,” Sam continued, because he wasn’t about to comment on the fact Bucky had chosen to make his appearance when Steve just so happened to be absent – he wasn’t an idiot.

“He worries,” Bucky raised one shoulder in a minimal shrug, as nonchalant as if he didn’t look one second away from shaking out of his seat; as if it didn’t look like he was struggling to shape his fingers into something other than claws; as if he didn’t look even closer to bolting than he did usually, “Stevie's my best pal, and. You know. He – cares. A lot.”

For all his expression was blank, he gave the appearance of being intently uncomfortable. And while Sam was sure Steve would do his utmost to sincerely support his best friend in whatever way Bucky would let him, sometimes –

Well, sometimes it was easier to just sit at a table for a bit with someone you didn't know so much.

“Yeah, I know that,” was all Sam echoed as such, which got him a repeat of that little snort he’d heard before, confirming his hearing indeed wasn’t busted. He set a mug of the strongest darkest coffee known to humankind down in front of Bucky, broadcasting the movement, along with the first pancake.

“You want butter and syrup, you know where they are,” he offered, as he’d heard Steve reminiscence enough about Bucky’s sweet tooth back when the pair were young, but was well aware the other man wasn’t good with being handed too many things.

The fact Bucky accepted – and even demanded – stuff from Sam these days was –

Well. It had taken two months before Bucky had even felt up to hanging out on the fire escape, so it was definitely something.

“Thanks,” Bucky peeked up at Sam between locks of his long dark hair, and there was possibly something like a sort of implication of a smile there, around the very corners of his bloodless lips.

Even so, he still looked like a man who had been told something appalling, punched in the gut and then kicked.

“No problem,” Sam turned back to the stove to give him peace to eat.

“Where’d you know that song from,” Bucky said when Sam had filled a big plate to share with a tower of pancakes and fried up half a pack of bacon to go alongside, locating the chocolate drops and maple syrup, electing to go with his own favourites as well as what he knew of the other man’s. While it wasn’t voiced as a question, the comment was enough of an invitation to inform Sam he could safely turn around, and when he did so Bucky went so far as to push a chair out from under the table with his foot an inch.

His brows endeavouring to rise, Sam shot him a smile of thanks and sat, depositing the dessert where everything was within reach if wanted, “My gramma.”

“She spent time in Singapore?” Bucky’s eyebrows had climbed a little also – and of course he’d been to Singapore sometime and knew the specific local dialect his gramma had picked up; Sam didn’t even know why he was surprised.

“Yeah, she ran away to become a sailor and spent some time there back before I was born; liked to scandalise my great-grandparents and my great aunties about it,” Shrugging, Sam launched between mouthfuls into one of the wilder stories his gramma had used to tell him back in the day – he knew an invitation to speak when he heard one.

By the time he’d reached the climax of the story, which involved his grandmother, a stolen sword and a number of unwashed pirates that had grown greater each time the young Samuel had requested the tale retold, Bucky had drained his coffee, eaten another three pancakes, all of the bacon, and made a fair inroad in consuming most of the maple sauce. He’d propped his flesh elbow on the table and some colour had even returned to his cheeks – two high spots of red than looked slightly feverish, but Sam wasn’t being picky.

He wanted to direct the other man into the shower and then Bucky’s potentially never used bed, in that forbidden territory that was the third bedroom behind the perpetually shut door in very back of the townhouse, but instead he clamped down on the mother hen tendencies and just concluded the tale in the way his gramma always did – “And then they remembered the chicken!” – and completely failed to quash the great burst of warmth and relief that exploded in his chest when Bucky let out what sounded like a completely unintentional laugh.

“Mm –” Bucky blinked a second after, looking totally perplexed, as if he’d forgotten that his body could do that.

“I always wanted to know what happened to that chicken after, as a kid,” Sam said, to give him time to recover, and wasn’t at all surprised when the other man disappeared behind his hair.

The retreat was temporary, however, and that _was_ a surprise.

The whole of this was a surprise, really, ever since Bucky had done what he never had in company before and climbed into the kitchen.

“I got this,” His tone utterly placid, Bucky, still shielded by those locks of hair, touched metal fingers lightly against the envelope, right against the line where he’d very neatly opened it.

“Yeah,” Sam refrained from saying any more than this.

“A friend,” Bucky continued, and then stopped. His expression behind his hair indistinct – Sam didn’t try to look. “Died.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam murmured into the pause.

“I didn’t know she was still alive,” Bucky lifted that shoulder – his flesh one – back in that minimal shrug, “I barely remembered her until I read the letter, but then it all came back.”

His voice was like calm grey water; the surface of a lake untouched by even the slightest ripple of wind. His lips still bloodless; those high spots of colour lingering in his cheeks.

“That sucks, man,” Sam said carefully. The radio was still playing in the background; their empty plates on the table between them. Bucky tapped his fingers once against the letter, very gently.

“Frankie,” he said in the manner of one who didn’t know why he was talking, but was continuing anyway, “Frances. I used to tease and call her Frank. Stevie never guessed it, but she liked dames just as much as I liked men. Used to take her out to the dances a lot of the time, chat with guys at the bar while she met up with her girl, get suspicion off the both of us back at home that way. Her folks used to come down on her like anything.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam had signally not known that Bucky was gay. But that wasn’t important right now, even if it did make him – re-evaluate certain things a degree, although they also weren’t currently relevant.

“Letter said she lived a good life,” Bucky emerged from his hair slightly to look down at it. He spread his fingers on top of the envelope, “Her granddaughter wrote it; sent it to the Avengers Tower and Potts forwarded it here.” His expression had tilted into something a little stunned, almost pleased, although there was a very brittle edge to it. “Turns out they had a kid together, apparently – Frank and her girl. Got married and everything.”

“Yeah?” Sam kind of – wanted to reach out and take other man’s hand, the mixture of pained joy and repressed grief pouring off Bucky near tangible, but didn’t even have to think about it to know he wouldn’t be thanked for the attempt. Instead he rested his own hand on the back of the chair next to him, opening up his body language without infringing on Bucky’s space.

“Yeah,” Bucky confirmed, just very slightly huskily.

A silence stretched out between them, aside from the slow quiet notes of a song on the radio, something Steve had been known to do a sort of waltz to across the kitchen occasionally.

“Never dared ask Stevie to go to the dances with me,” Bucky said as if that silence hadn’t happened; as if he knew exactly what thoughts were going through Sam’s head, “Not at those places, anyway.”

“Mm,” Yeah, Sam was familiar with what _that_ sort of pain sounded like, as well.

“Sucks, doesn’t it,” Bucky took a breath in and shocked Sam by glancing directly up at him. His irises were intensely blue, “You’ve been there?”

“Sure have, man,” Sam tipped his mug to him with a wry grin of acknowledgement.

“I’m glad things worked out for my old gal Frank,” Bucky drew himself up with a hint of sudden fire, “Damn glad.”

The fact he was verbally expressing such a positive emotion was – stunning. Sam just huffed and shook his head.

He decided to take a risk. “Why don’t you go look up that grandkid, huh? I’m sure Pepper could hook you up with an address. Write a letter back.”

Bucky – amazingly – didn’t flee for the window at the suggestion or go silent in the pitched manner he sometimes did, his version of a huff.

“Thought of that,” Tucking the letter carefully back into its hiding place inside his jacket, he pointed out instead.

“Course you have,” Sam went so far as to stand up, gather up the dishes and take them to the sink and when he turned around, Bucky was unexpectedly there in the kitchen _right behind him_.

“Hey,” Startling a bit, Sam nonetheless tossed the dish cloth at him, “Catch.”

“Hm,” Bucky just stood there and let it hit him in the chest. He did however catch it before it consequently fell on the floor.

“Come on, you ate, so you can help wash up,” Sam rolled his eyes as if his heartbeat hadn’t gone into overdrive at the entirely uncharacteristic proximity, snorting mildly when the other man then did nothing more than hold the thing.

Bucky recovered after a few seconds, although his voice was back to being placid, “Fair enough.”

“Sure is,” Sam was still genuinely shocked when Bucky next stepped in _even closer_ – and then hip checked him lightly out of the way in order to get to the sink.

In the six months they had ostensibly lived together with Steve, this was the first physical contact Sam had ever witnessed Bucky initiate. He didn’t think he imagined the tiny smirk that quirked a corner of the other man’s lips.

“Get ready to dry, Wilson; I’m washing,” Bucky stated, which was also the first time he had ever said Sam’s name. Grinning hugely despite himself, Sam retrieved the dish cloth while Bucky turned on the water to heat up.

Getting back to the house with a big box of doughnuts tucked under an arm sometime later, Steve found them still in the kitchen, fresh mugs of coffee in hand and a third one steaming on the counter in readiness for his return, Sam and Bucky’s arms pressed together at the elbow as they discussed some song on the radio, side by side.


End file.
